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Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

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Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#11

Post by ori_b »

nullc wrote: post #10
Dylan16807 wrote: post #2

I don't really understand how switching to a different system is going to do anything about levels of abuse and harassment. I'm sure it will be easier to use, at least. IRCv3 was trying to solve some of this but I haven't heard a peep in years.

Accessibility, especially from bandwidth efficient light weight software or text only devices is at odds with blocking automated spam. If you make it much harder for anyone with unusual software to connect, you make it harder for spam (and also a lot more legitimate users than spammers, but those don't count because they don't cause issues for operators).

Registration solves this rather well. Especially when paired with requiring an email account to get a registration password.

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#12

Post by edoceo »

newscracker wrote: post #8

> We are not rolling our own. Whether we host it ourselves or pay for a service, we’re getting something off the shelf that best meets our needs. I sincerely hope it’s not Slack and some restricted search archive platform. Moving away from IRC to a newer system could provide long lived archives to users. But if privacy is very important, then a “no archive” option would be fine (similar to IRC). Anything in between,…

We put our FOSS community on Mattermost - it's awesome!

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#13

Post by superconformist »

Mozilla's talk:

> Our mission is to ensure the Internet is a global public resource, open and accessible to all. An Internet that truly puts people first, where individuals can shape their own experience and are empowered, safe and independent.

Mozilla's walk:

Fuck it, spin up a Slack room.

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#14

Post by negativegate »

newscracker wrote: post #8

> We are not rolling our own. Whether we host it ourselves or pay for a service, we’re getting something off the shelf that best meets our needs. I sincerely hope it’s not Slack and some restricted search archive platform. Moving away from IRC to a newer system could provide long lived archives to users. But if privacy is very important, then a “no archive” option would be fine (similar to IRC). Anything in between,…

Hipchat is dead so you don't need to worry about that.

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#15

Post by kibwen »

superconformist wrote: post #13

Mozilla's talk: > Our mission is to ensure the Internet is a global public resource, open and accessible to all. An Internet that truly puts people first, where individuals can shape their own experience and are empowered, safe and independent. Mozilla's walk: Fuck it, spin up a Slack room.

You could levy this complaint if they actually end up picking Slack (or something similarly proprietary like Discord), but that seems quite premature. I'll miss moznet as much as anyone, but there's no denying that IRC has been left in the dust this past decade or more.

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#16

Post by stormbrew »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #7
newscracker wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The post says the new system will enforce authentication, and hints at dealing with bots and spam accounts. But it’s not going to be easy without inconveniencing users to some extent (or a greater extent than now).

IRC could enforce authentication without much effort. You could use email registration, etc. Maybe there's some black magic in other services to do better anti-bot/spam than that?

Generally speaking, systems that add registration onto irc tend to make it even harder to use than it already is. In order to make it better you basically have to make it at best act strangely with existing clients, or at worst make it completely incompatible with them.

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#18

Post by nwmcsween »

Irc unauthenticated? IRC has supported auth services since what 1995? There are also plenty of web irc gateways so I don't understand the reasoning to move to something more complicated for little gain, want history? Run ii in a tmux session and tail to a file, want to post images with a fancy GUI taking a gig or so of ram use slack.

Re: Mozilla is giving up on their IRC server

#20

Post by ori_b »

kibwen wrote: post #15
superconformist wrote: post #13

Mozilla's talk: > Our mission is to ensure the Internet is a global public resource, open and accessible to all. An Internet that truly puts people first, where individuals can shape their own experience and are empowered, safe and independent. Mozilla's walk: Fuck it, spin up a Slack room.

You could levy this complaint if they actually end up picking Slack (or something similarly proprietary like Discord), but that seems quite premature. I'll miss moznet as much as anyone, but there's no denying that IRC has been left in the dust this past decade or more.

It seems that by left in the dust, you mean "remained lightweight and simple". The popular alternatives so far don't seem to have any clients I find pleasant to use, and are rather strongly discouraging anyone from writing third party clients.
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